Chairman Couto resigning from Diman School Committee

FALL RIVER — The chairman of the School Committee at Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School is resigning.

Laurenio Couto, an alumnus of the school who graduated in 1982, served on the committee from 1998 to 2006 and had been on it since being reappointed in 2010 by Mayor Will Flanagan.

School Committee Vice Chairman Paul Jennings will serve as chairman until a successor is appointed. The committee will formally recognize Couto's resignation when it meets next Thursday. Flanagan will appoint Couto's replacement.

"I think I put my time in," Couto said Friday afternoon. "I have a lot of other commitments, between personal stuff and business things."

When asked whether timing and recent School Committee actions played into his decision, Couto declined to comment.

He was the lone committee member who opposed entering into negotiations with and tendering a contract extension for Superintendent-Director Marta Montleon. Last month, the committee approved a two-year contract extension for Montleon.

Couto said that, when he was appointed by former Mayor Edward Lambert, he became the first Diman alumnus to serve on the School Committee.

"Think I opened some doors, getting alumni involved," said Couto, who studied plumbing when he was a student at Diman.

Couto now runs a plumbing business and is a part-owner of the Commonwealth Landing building on Davol Street, where Jerry Remy's Sports Bar & Grill and Bristol Community College's Center for Workforce Development are located.

Of Diman's current situation, Couto said he thinks there are "things that need to be done at the school."